Back in My Day...
Musings from the old man in the rocking chair.
The barrier to entry for aspiring filmmakers and video professionals is so low right now that it’s frustrating for someone like me who grew up shooting my own little movies on my dad’s VHS camcorder and editing them on two VCR’s in a linear fashion.
[Insert Old Man rant here]
Kids today. They’ll never understand what I went through.
My dad bought the family’s very first VHS camcorder in 1987 when I was nine. I was instantly hooked. I carried that camera everywhere. I filmed family get-togethers, front yard football games, and every mundane “day-in-the-life” moments. Basically, I was that annoying little kid who was always standing there when you turned around, a lens right in your face.
Then I got my friends involved.
We acted out skits in front of the camera.
We produced our own “news” shows.
We performed our own music videos.
First Lesson: Experiment. Shoot things just to shoot them. Create. Explore. Find out what you like and don’t like and why.
Basically, we did stuff that Instagrammers and Tik-Tokkers are doing today, except no one else saw the tapes outside of my immediate circle (Thank God). Now, excuse me for a minute while I close the lid on this box of tapes and file them away.
I slowly graduated from elementary slapstick (that no one else outside of my mom would probably find funny) and started imitating what I saw in the theaters and on TV.
I made my own James Bond movies (two of them, in fact).
I made my own Indiana Jones movie.
This is when I really started observing the process of filmmaking: angles, composition, staging, movement, pacing, etc. But since my friends (and sometimes my Dad when the cast called for an adult) and I only had a VHS camcorder, we had to work with what we had and come up with creative solutions to logistical problems.
Second Lesson: Really watch other films. Study them. Dissect them. Ask “why?” Learn from others and practice what you see.
The next logical step in my fledgling creative journey was to write and shoot my own original stories (which I did).
Were they good? No.
Did I learn a lot? Yes.
Did I have to answer a lot of questions from police, security officers, and store managers about what my friends and I were doing there with a camera? Maybe.
Do I wish I had the filmmaking tools then that young people have today? Absolutely. But I can’t say for certain that my films would be any better. Sure, they might look better, but that’s because so many of today’s cameras produce a really nice picture right out of the box. But learning with old tech and techniques like VHS camcorders and linear editing really forced me to think about the craft of it all.
How do I light/compose/stage this scene to make it look its absolute best (considering this is all on VHS tape)?
Does this edit make sense and serve the story (when linear editing is much more time-consuming)?
Yes, I’m now the crusty old man sitting on the front porch rocker just outside where that old Radio Shack used to be, spouting off words of filmmaking wisdom to every Influencer that strolls by with a phone in-hand. Now, let’s “black” a fresh tape and jog that shuttle wheel forward…